The Festival: Hemmingward – MFA Thesis Project

In pursuit of a secret recipe, Nishma is roped into solving a decade-long mystery, and putting a village’s trauma to rest.

The Festival: Hemmingward is a narrative game about helping bring a war criminal to justice while you are trying to put on a food festival. It is my thesis project for my MFA at the University of Connecticut, and a prototype for a larger game about putting on a food festival in a country that just got out of a civil war.

I began working on this game in earnest in Spring 2024, with pre-production and ancillary work stretching back to December 2022. I wrote the story’s script, modeled the 3D characters, worked on the environment art, and used Unreal Engine 5’s blueprints to program the game. Consulting and editing help was provided by genocide activist and researcher Bekir Hodzic, music and audio help was provided by fellow UConn student Faith Colello, and additional environment assets were modeled by Morgan Taylor. The splash art/promotional poster and introductory slides were made by Flapjack.

The current build of the game, and a full list of credits, can be found here: https://cornelius-of-lykia.itch.io/the-festival-hemmingward

You can read the game’s development blog here: https://thefestival.tumblr.com/

As this was my thesis project, it was showcased at the 2025 MFA Digital Media & Design Exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut from March 31st to May 9th of this year.

Here are a handful of photos from the gallery showing people playing the game:

CREDITS

  1. Christian Romero – Lead Designer
  2. Bekir Hodzic – Main Consultant
  3. Faith Colello – Music
  4. Morgan Taylor – Additional 3D Art (Roxane’s Room)
  5. Flapjack – Promotional Poster and Introductory Slides
  6. Kenneth Thompson – Advisor
  7. James Coltrain – MFA Committee Member
  8. Catherine Masud – MFA Committee Member

SPECIAL THANKS

  1. Zachary Anderson – Producer of the DialogueTree plugin
  2. Erik Moran – Previous support in producing 3D assets
  3. Nate Lindgren – Consulting Support
  4. Jamilya Nazyrbayeva – Consulting Support
  5. Alicia Krasnai – Worldbuilding Support 
  6. Tech Valley Game Space – Support via the ProtoStar Grant
  7. Loren Zaccagni – Consulting and Editorial Support
  8. My Mom – Hi Mom 🙂